Tag Archives: art

Hello, Get Messy Thursday! I am excited to be posting again after a little lull the past couple weeks. Life has been busy but exciting as there are some changes that are coming to this blog, but for right now they are all still behind the scenes. With my new adventure that is bible journaling, I have been listening to art journaling podcasts, using new supplies and trying techniques that I had never even dreamed of before!

This first page is one that came up by accident. I was trying to get a technique figured out where you mix stamps and spray inks with water to make them spread. I kind of feel like it symbolizes some kind of renewed love for this craft, since it goes from the dark colors to the yellow. I was getting kind of bogged down by posting about my art every week, but now I already have some pages that are ready to go so that I am prepared as the holidays get closer.
For the second page, I used the Tim Holtz Inks to stamp a circle in three different colors around the page. Then I sprayed water on the whole page and then dryed it with a hair dryer. I might have not been wasn’t patient enough and stamped the “cherish each day” stamp a little too early because it turned out a bit unreadable. OH WELL, the background is the bomb.
Finally, I used a stencil to pattern the background in three different colors and then I used the stencil alpha by Dear Lizzy to write the word ‘joy’. I spritz the whole thing down to get the color to spread a little. I finished it up by handwriting one of my favorite verses. I totally love how this one turned out.

Get Messy is an art journal challenge where a gang of crafty vixens are sharing art journal pages we have created to practice our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. We share our pages without restraint every week, and once a month we create around a prompt. Go check out these crazy talented ladies who are creating pages who each have a unique perspective and style. We will be sharing our work around social media so follow the hashtag #getmessyartjournal.

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Happy get messy day, friends! I am feeling so inspired this week both by the beautiful weather here in the midwest this week and also by the gorgeous creations that my other Get Messy friends are posting.After our amazing photographer gave us our engagement photo gallery this past weekend, I decided to print a few out to use for this week’s pages. I have been trying to add new elements to my pages so when I found some little wood veneer hearts and arrows for a steal at hobby lobby, I just had to buy them and use them all up. I painted them gold and then added a faux wood look to the left-hand page to tie them together.

Get Messy is an art journal challenge where a gang of crafty vixens are sharing art journal pages we have created to practice our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. We share our pages without restraint every week, and once a month we create around a prompt. Go check out these crazy talented ladies who are creating pages who each have a unique perspective and style. We will be sharing our work around social media so follow the hashtag #getmessyartjournal.

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I just started this project and I’m already behind on posting about it. But don’t worry, I’m caught up in real life. And I also have a really cool instax photo album to put them all in! I’ll post more about that when it starts getting filled up.

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NOT PICTURED: Zebras.

Yep, there are exotic animals about 1 mile from my house. Too bad it was too dark by the time I took this picture.

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Apparently, I have this really cool habit of taking pictures at sunset, which for this camera means that part of it is dark. In person, it turns out alright but when I photograph it for my blog posts, it ends up looking like it has no detail. I took this picture a few weeks ago on one of the back roads by my house, I LOVED the sunset that night, so I took a drive.

4/52This is easily one of my favorite photos that I have taken using this camera. I really like passenger seat rear view mirror shots with the sunset in the background. Are you noticing a trend?

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It’s autumn and I love it, all I can think about is perfect football weather and leaves changing colors.

I got pretty crazy with the gold sharpie but used no other supplies. And I loved the simplicity of just that little bit with a lovely sentiment from a favorite childhood book. Also, I can tell that I have been working on my handwriting, because it is getting better – faux calligraphy though? LOVE IT.For the second page, I just drew a leaf. It started as a rough draft for an embellishment for the first page but then it got too big and I ended up finishing it instead. GOLD GOLD GOLD, I love you.

Get Messy is an art journal challenge where a gang of crafty vixens are sharing art journal pages we have created to practice our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. We share our pages without restraint every week, and once a month we create around a prompt. Go check out these crazy talented ladies who are creating pages who each have a unique perspective and style. We will be sharing our work around social media so follow the hashtag #getmessyartjournal.

Like this:

I have a hard time believing that a non-creative person exists. I mean, creativity comes in all forms and looks completely different for each person. Without creative people, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist – no musicians, no designers, no entrepreneurs, no engineers, no architects, no doctors…and the list goes on. If you are a problem solver, art-maker, hobby-haver, communicator, or thinker then you are a creative person.

Even everyday conversations require creativity to use combinations of words and phrases together! One of the most fascinating things is to eavesdrop on a conversation and compare what you would have said to what the eavesdropee is saying. (If this isn’t a thing that people do, then let’s pretend I didn’t just admit to eavesdropping.)

Here are a few tips to unleash your creativity:

Try something new. If you want to be a painter, you can be! All you have to do is start painting – that’s it.

Just Start. Go ahead and begin a project. Realize that if you mess up or if what you’re working on isn’t up to your standards, you’re in a better place than if you wouldn’t have started at all because now at least you know what doesn’t work!

Practice makes perfect. So maybe you don’t believe in perfect, per-se, but my parents used to say this all the time in relation to not just being able to expect yourself to be good at something the first time. It’s a shame I threw away the hundred pages I first tried calligraphy on, because if that wasn’t the epitome of that saying, I don’t know what is.

Use inspiration. Sparingly. This is a toughy. Inspiration is great and can help you get some fantastic ideas just be careful about copying someone’s work or using a voice that’s not necessarily your own. Gather ideas and use those to formulate your plans and notes. If you do take someone else’s ideas verbatim, you definitely need to site where you found it.

Get ideas flowing. Start by warming up for five minutes. This can be anything from writing a timed journal entry to free playing on your guitar while making up words, to taking a walk, to combining colors, themes and patterns to create a “mood board”. I like to listen to music I don’t know the words to when I am painting, this helps me to focus on the paint and strokes while also having some background noise.

Make lists. What are your goals – both big and little? Ticking them off as you go will help you feel more productive. Lists can also be used to reflect on projects to compare what you liked and what you didn’t so that you will can improve next time.

Set deadlines. Force yourself to finish something. This is one of the greatest lessons that I have learned from Get Messy in the past nine weeks. The time crunch holds me accountable and gets the creativeness going even when I’m tired or want to do something else.

Bounce ideas off an expert. Find someone who is creative in a way that you connect with and ask them questions. See what there creative process is like and how each project is executed.

Don’t be afraid to be embarrassed. Some of my worst projects have been posted right here on this blog and even though I hated posting it, I love looking back on it to see how much my art work has changed. Even the photos in some of my very first blog posts are a mess, but the journey is oh-so lovely. This is what pushes me to keep practicing.

Overcome self-negativity. This one’s obvious. The more you put yourself down or tell yourself that you can’t do something, the more you won’t want to (or be able to) do something.

Save it. If you’re stuck and your project doesn’t seem complete, let it sit around in a place you will see it for a few days. Let your brain think of it in the background and see if you can’t come up with something to add or change to make your project better.

Scrap it. It’s not practical to think that every single project/hobby will be “your thing”. Do what you love and scrap what you don’t.

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I got inspiration for this one from a picture that I took over the summer before a family shoot. I choose “Oh Happy Day” because it reminds me of the song by Aretha Franklin. It’s mostly funny to me because my cousin used to scream “NO HAPPY DAY” any time it came on.
So the actual picture…it’s different but similar and they evoke the same feeling, so why not? I love flowers.I calligraphied this one earlier in the week when I was reflecting on the things that I need to be working on. I even drew the flowers with the pen, which was so much easier to me than writing is but I’m finally starting to get the hang of the pen angle as well. I like the sketched look for this.
Finally, my bad day regime. You know, just in case.

Get Messy is an art journal challenge where a gang of crafty vixens are sharing art journal pages we have created to practice our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. We share our pages without restraint every week, and once a month we create around a prompt. Go check out these crazy talented ladies who are creating pages who each have a unique perspective and style. We will be sharing our work around social media so follow the hashtag #getmessyartjournal.

Like this:

It’s safe to say that after seven weeks, I am still absolutely loving this project. Each week is something new and I never thought I would make it this far. I started out with water colors this week….and the first two pages I painted are just straight up not worth showing anyone. So here is the third one that I tried. I was reading distracted by an email when I decided on the words. They weren’t even said exactly, but after “practicing” and totally hating it, I decided that I probably just needed to be a little more patient about what I was working on. Ironically, the smudge marks are from me not letting it fully dry before touching it. It kind of makes the page perfect to me now. This one I actually have had made since last week. I have been contemplating the things that really make me happy in life while trying to figure out how much of the time I spend doing those things. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it’s a good start. This is probably my favorite page so far, just because it includes a couple things from the list above and gold, which is quickly becoming my favorite color. This is the first time that I have ever torn pages out of a book and I hated it. It still feels weird, but I did chose a book that I bought for $0.50 and that Kevin has a duplicate of…so that makes it better, right?

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My name is Jacqueline, thanks for stopping by my blog! I enjoy sunshine, laughter, and cuddling up with a good book as well as photography, writing, and everything DIY. This is my little space on the internet to share my life and every day joy.

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